What if this doesn't change anything?
The conversation you need to have with your brain when it is doubting the validity of everything.
I am currently engaged in something that eats my confidence alive. I have entered the “what if this doesn’t change things?” phase of proceedings.
Call it January blues, call it pressure, but something is swirling inside, making a maelstrom of my productivity.
Here I am second guessing every task. Which in turn:
Invites more procrastination
Sees me bottleneck even the simplest of tasks
Allowing the busyness to take hold
Encourages me to start and abandon almost everything
Has obligation perched crushingly on my head
I have a lot to do! I scream at, and inside, my brain.
I am desperate to lock down client work and coaching clients to provide the certainty, focus, money, and routine I crave. I am eager to find a way to kickstart communities I run for another year, especially as the cold winds of disinterest sail through Meta products.
And yet, as mission critical as that all feels and the obligations pile up, the little action I do muster up, I am undermining and questioning.
The desire to soothe myself is strong
My maladaptive coping strategies include:
Calling it a day and binge-watching TV, drowning out the guilt and self-doubt within, knowing full well I’m only delaying tomorrow’s inevitable crushing
Write some pissy-pants blow up piece about someone who said something unfair and discouraging for short term relief and long-term anxiety
Rage scroll social media looking for someone, anyone, to argue the toss with
The roots though are too exposed for me to cover them in avoidance.
I am trying to control the uncertainty and the outcome by avoiding it entirely.
And what I need to do before I try to do another client task or dig myself out of any hole that I am in is write out this sensation with truth and transparency.
As I sit cross-legged on my bed (the only place I felt safe enough to stop spiralling) eating burnt toast (the only thing I felt capable of making while indecision taunts me) dropping crumbs in the sheets, on the paper, and into my lap as I munch and write through this, I realise something.
I am asking small moves and fledgling actions to carry the weight of very big feelings. I am compounding this folly by loading on truckloads of responsibility.
And my desire for freedom isn’t actually about the tasks at hand or the situation I find myself in.
Image: a boat on a grey lake with the clouds rolling in.
I want freedom from this terrible feeling
Suddenly, I snap to awareness. This is something I can remedy.
The feeling isn’t a fact. It doesn’t have a crystal ball into the future. And it doesn’t know if I will win, lose, or draw. Nor does it understand what might result from the act of trying.
A Future Self won’t be confronting a Present Me, demanding compensation for time spent on other things. It probably won’t even remember this moment on the bed and how it had the potential to change things for me.
Spinning on the spot like an indecisive top isn’t going to cure this or generate any positive activity.
I may not be able to flick the switch inside my head, dump the toxic stench of self-doubt from my grey matter, and have it run down my ear into the gutter where it should be.
But what I can do is:
a) Stop isolating myself further by bottlenecking communication between me and the rest of the world. I can put aside the unease and unhappiness and talk to people instead of feeling separate and unhappy. I can create the connection and belonging I need.
b) Process these emotions and see the deep roots of where they come from for what they are. Before deciding those reasons no longer apply to embrace a better me.
c) Read the article with uncanny timing that my friend Marian has shared with me about all these kinds of feels.
d) Do some tiny tasks to get some ticks before doing some more tiny tasks and slowly get through my TO DO list by taking the pressure off things.
e) Cut out the things I have included in my day to mitigate the risk of someone somewhere rejecting me. And move forward with the things that I believe in so the right clients and connections can find me.
f) Write my way out of the situation on pen and paper while crumbing on my bed as though it is the most adult thing in the world. And hit publish so the other adults who know this sensation can find me.